


lifetime achievement award

by icemachine



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Gen, I've never read a comic book in my life.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 06:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18615373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemachine/pseuds/icemachine
Summary: He talks to them, sometimes & when itreallyhurts, he can imagine their voice, too, in the depths of his mind where the fears are pressed into bookshelves, where the blankets of hatred blow through the ceilings like another kind of haunting. Where his unruined flesh is stored in jars & everything he has ever touched is a window on the wall to look through,compulsorysuffering and anguish like a second layer of scarring. He lives in this part of his mind, trapped in metallic, and every time he imagines the spirit's voice, he can feel the glass breaking. So slowly, like falling from the skies.





	lifetime achievement award

**Author's Note:**

> i've never read a doom patrol comic in my life nor do i ever plan to due to reasons so uhhh this is all just based off the show and shit ive seen on tumblr and in discord servers

  
  
  


He can’t help himself. The manor is lonely, when the Chief is gone on his - trips. Lately he only has Rita, who isn’t much for conversing most of the time. 

 

The first time he tries holding a conversation with it—them?—he thinks that he can almost feel the teeth of the air underneath his bandages.  _ Almost.  _ He does feel the cold, on occasion, & he can feel it now, a sort of alien shivering motion weaving throughout his body. 

 

He’s sitting on the ground. The running permanence of green grass is staining parts of his coat, he knows; it is useless to worry about. He can feel a stir of electricity, a whirl of static and blue flickers in his chest.

 

“I don’t know what you want me to do,” he sighs. “There’s nothing  _ to  _ do.”

 

_ Nothing to do but sit here and talk to the being living inside of me.  _ He’s losing his fucking mind, cell by cell. Lobe by lobe, his brain deteriorates, yet marches on with time. He cannot bear it.

 

“I know. I could try to find a hobby. I suppose. Maybe gardening. What do you think of that?”

 

He doesn’t really expect a response. They have never spoken to him before, he doubts it will start with a conversation about plants, but: he’s lonely.

 

God. He’s so lonely.

 

“I’ve always loved carnations. They’re beautiful.”

 

The circle in his chest flickers at a faster pace, then disappears entirely. He’ll take that as a yes.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


After this he talks to them, sometimes, & when it  _ really  _ hurts, he can imagine their voice, too, in the depths of his mind where the fears are pressed into bookshelves, where the blankets of hatred blow through the ceilings like another kind of haunting. Where his unruined flesh is stored in jars & everything he has ever touched is a window on the wall to look through,  _ compulsory _ suffering and anguish like a second layer of scarring. He lives in this part of his mind, trapped in metallic, and every time he imagines the spirit's voice, he can feel the glass breaking. So slowly, like falling from the skies.

 

_ Falling from the skies. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


This is what he sees at night. The charred remains of his life surrounded by shattered pieces of airplane. John’s body, floating lifeless in a body of water, blood on his mouth and neck and cheeks in the shape of a lip print. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He asks them, one desperate night: “Why did my life end up like this? Why did I get stuck with  _ you?  _ I could’ve been so—”

 

An arm reaches out from his chest. Its hand grabs Larry’s right wrist, slowly tracing down into his palms, retracting as quickly as it extended. It grounds him.

 

“No,” he sighs. “You’re right. I couldn’t have been any of that. I could never have been anything I wanted to be.” He stops himself for a second, steadies his breath. 

 

“You know, maybe it’s better this way.”

 

A rough wave of  _ feeling  _ swallows him. For a fraction of a second, he thinks he feels what the spirit feels, an emotion too intense for any description. It seems like - warmth, an extraterrestrial, terrifying fondness, but intensified to a melting level - the kind of warmth that truly does  _ burn.  _

 

Larry cannot tell if that emotion lives only in his mind, a concept he clings to out of loneliness, or if it was a gift, something shared across minds; it fades away, rapidly, just another aspect of him lost to the past.

 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this is short i don't have an attention span
> 
> pls kudos + comment if u enjoyed! :)


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